Check your Academic Writing Skills
Section outline
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Check your Academic Writing Skills
As a student at LSHTM you will be expected to write in a style that is 'academic'. There is often confusion about what that means, does it mean using a lot of long words? Writing long sentences that contain clauses and sub-clauses? Always writing in the passive voice? Knowing how to use a semi-colon?
The most important thing to remember about academic writing is that it should be clear, concise and to the point. In terms of style, it should be serious but not pompous. For example, look at the following two sentences and decide which you think sounds more academic:
- The questionnaire was distributed among the study population by the research team.
- Distribution of the questionnaire among the study population was facilitated by the research team.
Many of you will have chosen Example B because it sounds more formal. However, academic English, like all other forms of English, changes and develops over time. You may have been taught to write English which can sound slightly too formal (or pompous) for what is expected today. You will also need to be objective, cautious and support your arguments with evidence. This section will give you more examples features of academic English but the easiest way to recognise the features and improve your skill is to immerse yourself in academic writing. The more articles and reports you read in English the more you will get a feel for how formal you need to be.
We've also made available some quizzes which you can use to assess for yourself your own academic writing knowledge.
The following exercises use many of the terms used to analyse academic English, such as 'hedging' or 'nominalisation'. These terms may well be unfamiliar to you and you shouldn't worry about them! They are useful in terms of analysing 'how' academic English works but you don't need to know them to write well.
Complete the quiz on the next page to see how much you know about the features of academic English.
The LSHTM Academic Writing Handbook has more information. as do the links here to:
And you might find these links useful:- A resource from Hamilton on Using sources
- Open universities free course on Essay and Report writing skills
- The Purdue University Writing lab